


Star Struck

by FlameTheFanboy



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: All of them have tattoos, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Tattoo Parlor, Angst, Anxiety, Bilingual Lance (Voltron), Depression, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Everyone is in their early and late 20's, Except for pidge she just has piercings, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, I'm not sorry, It's barely mentioned but it's there, It's minor but boy oh fucking boy it's there kiddos, Keith and Shiro are Adoptive Siblings, Langst, M/M, Multi, Mutual Pining, Not Beta Read, One-sided pining, Shatt, Tattoos, Trans Female Character, Trans Female Pidge | Katie Holt, Trans Lance (Voltron), Trans Male Character, kangst, klance, klangst, lots of suffering, tattoo artist Lance, they're both pining messes ok
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-11-08 07:43:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11077107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlameTheFanboy/pseuds/FlameTheFanboy
Summary: Lance Mcclain, an up-and-coming tattoo artist working in an equally up-and-coming tattoo shop, is quite desperate to move up in the world. Constantly building up his portfolio, desperate for his own small lick of fame in the world of tattoos.So when a quick tempered and rather confusing man named Keith Kogane quite literally comes tumbling into his life, eventually offering the final piece he needs to complete his portfolio, he's rather ecstatic, finally believing he can rise up in the world.But when the opportunity finally comes, and he's only an arm's reach away from his dreams, can he really leave behind the path that he's made?





	1. Simple introductions

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you like chaos. Also the first chapter is mainly filler I'm soRRY-

Lance, for the most part, usually liked the sunset. It would provide incredibly bright and blurred coloured, creating a beautiful mesh of vibrancy which he felt he could stare at for hours.

Today, however, he wanted to chuck every paintbrush, pencil and his one cup of water that sat scattered around him at the soft orange and blue hues of the sky.

This was because Lance had been staring at it for almost an hour now, as he had been for the past couple of days. Yet he couldn’t stop looking, because no matter how frustrating the easy transitions between the colours seemed to be, he felt like he needed to transfer the sight before him onto the large A1 sheet that sat loosely on his completely trashed desk.

He wasn’t exactly obligated to completing the image, no where near actually. It had come as a whim around a week ago, when he’d been mindlessly trawling through the web when he’d found a practical gold mine of different varieties of sunsets and sunrises, and he’d silently promised himself he’d do the same as the artists he had found.

Cut to a week later however, and Lance’s mood had changed on that quite a bit.

It annoyed him to no end that no matter what he did, he simply could not get the colours right, and whenever he did something slightly good, it would smudge something else out, resulting in yet another mistake in the vast amount of colours he had already subjected his paper to.

He let out a low groan, silently cursing under his breath and let his pencil drop onto the carpet of his room, and then regretting that decision immediately because oh god that was a brush and he just got paint on his floor god dammit-

As he bent down to pick up the offending brush he, rather aggressively, blew a small strand of hair out of his vision, and when Lance started getting mad at hair, that was when he knew it was probably time for a break.

In an almost pained way, he pulled himself up from the leather seat he had ‘borrowed’ from Pidge a couple of months ago, and dragged his feet to the door, before making his way through the corridor and into the room that served as both their kitchen and living room.

To his utter and complete joy, he saw Hunk standing in the kitchen, bent over a plastic bowl which was filled to the brim with ingredients which Lance most likely could not name, because the furthest his cooking vocabulary went to was toast and instant meals. And coffee. He knew coffee quite well.

“Hunk, for the sake of my very life, please tell me that bowl contains something that will save me from the hell of my existence,” he draped himself over the counter, instantly using the most extravagant hand actions he could muster up to emphasise his current suffering.

“Ok so one, it’s just cookies, don’t let your hopes get to high, “ to late for that, Lance was already staring longingly at the bowl, “and two, it’s only five past six on a Sunday, what’s gotten you all ruffled up?”

“The sun,” Lance muttered, absentmindly fiddling with paint covered and previously white shirt he was wearing as he continued to stare at the small bowl Hunk was continually stirring.

“Gonna need a bit more of a description there bud, also please pass the chocolate,” Lance focussed in a bit more, and picked up the small bag to his left Hunk had asked for, of course not before stealing a handful of chocolate chips for himself.

“I dunno man, it’s just the sun is really hard to paint, and it won’t stop moving and I don’t want to take a picture because it ruins the quality and that’d suck and I don’t want any sucky paintings in my portfolio y’know?”

Hunk nodded along absent-mindedly as he started pouring out different amounts of the small pieces of chocolate, making sure to stir the portions in before adding any more, determined to get the perfect amount in without having to get out his rickety old weighing scale, which he was pretty sure lied to him ninety percent of the time he used it.

Lance continued on with his mini rant about the difficulty of mixing his limited amount of paint, eventually moving onto how small his window was, then to how small their apartment was in general, until eventually he had dived deep into a rather extensive debate as to whether or not the wood he was standing on was really wood or just plastic made to look like wood.

At that point however, Hunk had managed to get the small balls of dough into the oven, and after a firm thirty minutes of Lance rambling on about different topics while he added the occasional opinion, he was able to pull the cookies out of their small oven, and place them on the counter.

“Seriously Lance, I’m pretty sure that they wouldn’t go through all the effort of designing the plastic to resemble wood.”

“Yeah but if they did that it would probably be way cheaper, because I’m pretty sure plastic is way cheaper than wood,” Lance darted up from his spot on the counter as he said this, attempting to snatch away one of the close to heavenly looking cookies sitting on a metal tray.

“Good point, but wouldn’t it also cost way more with all that design process? Also stop trying to burn yourself,” Hunk swatted away Lance’s invading hand, “patience man, patience.”

“But moooom,” Lance moaned as he pulled his hand back, still impatient but understanding his friend’s reasoning, “I want cooooookies.”

Suddenly, there was a small pitter patter of bare feet on the, still under suspicion, wooden floor of their apartment’s hallway, and a small mess of tangled hair and over sized clothes poked their head around the corner of the open room.

“I heard cookies, so I came, where that good shit at,” and yep, that was Pidge, always straight to the point whenever it came to food.

“Pidge!” Hunk let out a very overdramatic gasp, plastering a look of pure horror on his face, “how dare you use such, such language in front of me!”

A small smirk showed up on Pidge’s tired face, and as she began a slow stroll towards the small kitchenette, Lance could almost tell that she was planning something.

“Mother,” Pidge began in a small trawl, that small smirk still present, “although I am incredibly sorry for this horrid crime I have committed-“

Pidge shot out into a mini sprint at that point, doing what looked like a gymnast level lean over the stools in front of their counter to reach the tray that contained her prey, managing to grab two of the still rather hot cookies before bouncing backwards, the smirk now having evolved into a grin.

“I’m afraid to say that in my mind, cookies come over manners, so fuck this shit I’m out.”

It was at that moment that her plan failed, as Lance’s arm shot out, grabbing at one of Pidge’s small arms, “I think not little missy.”

Pidge glared at Lance, a look of pure determination on her face, but at a single glance at Hunk’s face, which he had warped into an incredibly pleading expression, puppy eyes and all.

“Curse your pureness Hunk,” Pidge muttered, returning the now slightly crushed cookies to the tray.

“I try.” Hunk smiled, although it was quite a devious one at that.

“I noticed,” Pidge agreed, before yanking her petit arm out of Lance’s now much looser grip. She took a moment to rub the area before continuing, “jeez Lance, was the death grip really necessary?”

“For Hunk, anything is necessary,” Lance claimed, before pulling a soldier’s pose and saluting to the now grinning boy to his left.

“Yeesh, stand down soldier, just cookies, not the pentagon.”

“Pidge, why is your first thought when I salute the pentagon?”

Pidge’s eyes flicked in the general direction of her room, which Lance knew to contain a very large and very complicated mesh of wires and screens, which both he and Hunk had been banned from even approaching unless they wished to meet death.

“No reason.”

“Pidge, if you’re hacking the pentagon from our apartment instead of that super-secret base in the university that I _know_ you have, I will personally remove your face from the building.” Lance half threatened and half joked, although he honestly wouldn’t be surprised if the girl walked in one day with a detonator for some confidential super weapon.

“Ok so one, since when did I have a super-secret base? And two, relax, I’m just doing some research on some more old fashioned systems, no big deal,” Pidge retorted,

“Fine, but remember that I’m watching Pidge, alllways watching,” Lance made sure to draw out his words, both squinting and leaning towards as to make a point.

“Hunk, please tell me when I can take a cookie so I can run from Lance’s shitty 2001 references.”

Lance put a hand to his chest, rendered temporarily silenced by that horrendous insult Pidge had just made at one of his favourite childhood movies. To six year old Lance, Monsters Inc. was _the shit_. Hunk just sighed.

“Five minutes Pidge, no less.”

“But why though?”

“Because otherwise you’re going to burn your tongue-“

Lance but guffaw at this statement, “Hunk, I’ve seen Pidge throw back coffee right after it’s been poured into the mug, I’m pretty sure her mouth is numb enough by now to handle a hot cookie.”

“At least I don’t take ten minutes to even take a single sip.”

“Excuse me you little midget-“

“Double negative-“

“Children, stop fighting,” Hunk cut in, batting his hands in the general directions of his friends, “just wait for your treats.”

Pidge snorted, “Hunk, I’m four months younger than you.”

“Children.”

“I’d curse at you but I fear that the Gods would strike me down where I stand.”

“They probably would,” Lance stated, and both Pidge couldn’t help but nod in agreement.

* * *

 

Lance was, quite surprisingly, not late for work the next day.

He’d woken up at around ten past seven after getting an ever refreshing six hours of sleep, laid in bed for ten minutes and stared at his ceiling, refusing to get up, before making his way towards their rather small bathroom, which consisted of a shower that's water pressure resembled that of a tap, and a small toilet and sink.

Somehow, a couple of months back, Hunk and Pidge had managed to construct a small cabinet above the sink, and although Lance will never understand how, he will forever be thankful to them for it.

The room was also exclusively beige, the only spots of colour laid folded up on their towel rack, and Lance grabbed out for the pale blue one at the bottom, laying it on the floor next to the box of a shower, and then leaned in to turn the shower on.

While he waited for the water to warm up, he began scrubbing off his nightly face mask with a wash cloth he kept in the above sink cabinet, making sure to get all of the cream off before washing off the cloth and placing it back into the cabinet.

As he started to strip off his pyjamas, which consisted of a blue and pink ombre shirt that looked like it was about to fall off of him and some grey bottoms which fit him at least slightly better than the shirt.

Although he cared for his appearance for the most part, sleep was where he drew the line.

He also, with much reluctance, had to pull off the sports bra he wore while he slept. He knew it wasn’t the best of things to do, but hey, it was better than wearing his binder, right?

He took a good ten minutes in the shower, and another ten applying different lotions and sprays onto his skin, then yet another ten minutes in his room deciding on his outfit for that day. Of course, that was after his daily struggle against his binder.

Eventually, he decided on a simple white shirt, some slightly ripped grey jeans and a dark blue jacket. When it came to his piercings, he wasn’t feeling very original, so he simply chose his classic grey studs for his eye brow piercings, and a black stud for his left ear. He didn’t even bother with his helix piercings, as he really wasn’t bothered enough to dig to the bottom of the box where he kept his arrangement of studs and the occasional ring.

What he didn’t skip out on however was a small string bracelet, this one consisting of different shades of blue looped together. It was a simple, but he treasured it. It was one of many string bracelets he had received from his siblings, and he made sure to wear one every day.

After all that, he had about twenty minutes of free time, so with enthusiasm resembling that of a reanimated corpse, he shuffled into the chilled air of the corridor, instantly heading for the apartment’s kitchenette, or in other words, headed straight for the kettle.

As he filled the kettle up from the light coloured sink, he saw a small form heading towards him in his peripheral vision, “I swear that you have a sixth sense or something for whenever I’m making coffee.”

Pidge was wearing their classic 8am outfit of an oversized shirt that slipped down past her shoulder a pair of tracksuit bottoms. Lance would be willing to bet money that she had stolen them from her brother Matt, who lived a thirty minute walking distance away from their apartment.

“Well, it means I don’t have to sleep, so I do tune myself to know when it’s going to be available.”

“Magic,” Lance said, putting the kettle down on it’s base before blowing up his hands next to his head, with sound effects of course.

“Lance if I were magic I would’ve avada kedavra’d your ass a long time ago,” Pidge deadpanned back, before sliding her way past Lance and pulling herself up onto the counter.

“Harsh,” Lance stated, as he watched the short girl in front of him turn her back at an odd angle so she could reach the cupboard behind her and pull out two mugs, one significantly larger than the other.

“I try,” she slid off the counter, mugs in hand as she took the two steps it took her to get to the other side of the kitchenette.

They worked in a comfortable enough silence as they listened to the kettle begin to rattle, Lance absentmindedly pouring coffee beans into the mugs, while Pidge pulled out the milk and sugar for Lance.

“I still don’t understand how you can drink it when only 10% is actually coffee,” Pidge commented as she plopped the bottle and bag next to the mugs, and Lance couldn’t help but scoff at her comment.

“Pidge, unlike you, I’d like to be able to use my taste buds for the rest of my life.”

“Just saying, you don’t know the high that you’re missing.”

“Stop making coffee sound like a drug,” the switch of the kettle flipped up, and Lance barely hesitated before grabbing it up and pouring the boiling water into the mugs.

Pidge picked up the larger of the two mugs, and popped herself back up onto the counter before taking a quick sip of the still scalding hot coffee before responding, “dude, the caffeine in coffee is literally a drug.”

“Details,” he waved his free hand as the other began pouring milk into the remaining cup, “but until you can snort coffee, I’m not calling it a drug.”

“You can snort caffeine.”

Lance raised an eyebrow, “wait, so does that mean I can snort my coffee-“

“Lance no.”

“Lance yes.”

“I will kick you out of this building.”

“I pay more rent, you can’t survive without me.”

Pidge cursed under her breath, because she knew that she and Hunk couldn’t afford this apartment with Hunk’s part time shop at a café and her occasional freelancing, “since when did you use your brain.”

“Since when did you pay more than half of our bills.”

“You do know that once I graduate I’ll probably be earning more than three times your yearly salary,” Pidge took a long sip from her mug, a smug look making it’s way onto her face.

“Yeah right, by then I’ll have my new and improved portfolio finished, all the high end shops in the country will practically be begging me to work for them.”

Pidge couldn’t help but snort at the bold claim, “dude, you’ll be like thirty by the time you finish that portfolio, you’ve been working on the same piece for more than a week now,” with that an insulted look came across Lance’s face.

“Excuse me, you try painting something that you can only see for thirty minutes a day.”

“Have you by any chance heard of this magical thing called ‘taking a photo’?” She tilted her head slightly, one of her eyebrows raised slightly as the other stayed flat.

“Yeah, but photos just don’t capture it properly, y’know? It’s one of those things which only look really good when you see it with your own eyes.”

“Then why are you trying to paint it?”

“Reasons Pidge, reasons,” Lance waved his hand at her, as if those three words perfectly answered her questions.

They in fact didn’t answer her question, and Pidge couldn’t help but roll her eyes, “whatever loser, I’m gonna go put on human clothes, try not to be late today.”

Lance watched her petit form shuffle across the floor boards to her room for a few seconds, before taking a quick swig from his own mug, “try not to fall asleep in your orbital mechanics lecture today!”

“That was one time Lance!

“You do it every couple of lessons according to Hunk.”

“Hunk you traitor!” A muffled sound of confusion was heard from the end of the hallway, no doubt from Hunk, who usually didn’t wake up at the same time as Lance and Pidge because on most days his lectures never started before 10am.

With that Pidge’s door swung shut, and Lance glanced up at the clock, 8:07am.

He took a few more minutes to savour his still hot coffee, until the clock hit quarter past and he chugged the rest down, slamming the mug down before darting back into his room and rummaging around for his set of keys, which consisted of two keys and a dozen keychains.

Keys in hand and caffeine in his system, Lance was ready to start off his day, and as he made his way out of the door, he couldn’t resist yelling over his shoulder, “catch you later, nerds!”

Whether either Pidge or Hunk responded, he didn’t know, as he’d already closed the door and started heading towards the nearest set of stairs, and Lance still didn’t regret getting an apartment on the second floor, despite the fact that the room above them thought 3am was a great time to start blaring music.

If it meant that Lance only had to walk down four sets of stairs instead of eight, Lance regretted nothing.

As per usual, he started storming down the stairs, always determined to get to the last floor as quickly and as loudly as possible. Of course, doing it loudly wasn’t mandatory, but he did it anyways, as it added one more thing onto his list of small jabs he could get at his neighbours.

Of course, his neighbours had their own little jabs, but Lance had a lot more.

He made his way through his complex’s small lobby, which had a few second hand sofas and bean bag pushed into the left corner, a snooker table that was missing a couple balls on the right, and walls plastered with the tacky sort of paintings you would find in a 99p store. The walls were painted with an almost obnoxiously bright green colour, which unfortunately was the colour of almost all their rooms when they first moved in.

Lance, Hunk, and Pidge had unanimously agreed that it looked horrible, and spent their first two weeks living there covering the neon green with their own preferred colours. They’d ended up with almost everything being a soft beige, except for Lance and Pidge’s rooms, which had resulted in one of Lance’s walls being a soft blue, while Pidge had opted for replacing the neon green walls with a soft emerald green instead.

Back onto the lobby, it was obvious that not much care was put into it, but it was a relatively cheap building considering the area it was in, so Lance could understand the lack of care put into non-mandatory décor.

After only a few seconds of walking through the lobby, Lance reached and tugged open the steel framed glass doors, and took in a face full of the crisp and chilling morning air.

This was a personal favourite part of the day for him, the first breath of unfiltered air, and although it would never match the fresh scent of the countryside or the salty scent that came from a coast, he still welcomed it happily.

He let his eyes adjust to the change in light as he began strolling down the pavement, taking in the chill air and the strong gusts of wind that hit him every time a car sped by, probably at least slightly over the speed limit.

It took him a bit, but his car was soon in sight, and he couldn’t help the small smile that appeared on his face.

He took great pride in the small, second hand mini cooper. He’d gotten it for himself for his eighteenth birthday, after saving for the good part of the past year. And even after four years, almost five, he still loved it dearly. Maybe a bit too much, as by now the car had its own full name and backstory, all written up on a text document hidden in a locked folder on Lance’s laptop.

That was not something he would be sharing with anyone anytime soon.

A few more steps and he was fishing his keys out of his pockets and putting the lightest coloured key into the lock, jiggling it slightly so it set into place properly, then opening up the door.

As he was settling down into the worn leather seat, he suddenly realised that it was cold as fuck in his car, and was soon moving quickly to close the door and shove the key into the ignition.

He took a moment to fiddle with the less than perfect heating system of his car before zipping up his jacket and began to pull out of his rather tight parking space.

After he got out of the space, which had involved performing several different small twists, turns, and almost screaming because he thought he’d reversed straight into the car behind his’s bumper, the heating finally kicked in, and he let out a small sigh of relief.

He remained silent throughout most of the drive, occasionally muttering to himself when the cars in front of him were going to slow for his liking. It was a particularly uneventful drive, mainly because Lance hadn’t been bothered enough to turn on a different station on the radio, and the entire journey had the slight background noise of a couple voices discussing the changing prices in real estate. What fun.

It wasn’t long before he was pulling up to the free parking spot strategically hidden behind a long string of small businesses, Lance’s workplace being one. He had no idea how the general public hadn’t found out about it yet, but he honestly hoped they never would, because otherwise it would be full 24/7, which meant he would have to find a different place to park, which would most likely end up in him having to add another fifteen minutes onto his daily commute.

That was not something Lance wanted in his life.

He pulled in to the nearest spot, checked he’d stayed between the lines, then made his way towards the soft white painted building that was his workplace.

With keys in hand, he swiftly turned the lock, treating the two people in the back room of the store with a quite loud and exaggerated, “good mooooooorning.”

He couldn’t help the smile that came up when he heard the annoyed groan he got in response.

“Lance, today is not the day for this, don’t,” the one person in the room, Allura, spoke up.

Allura wasn’t an official manager at Castle Inks, but it might as well have. She was the one that made sure the small amount of staff that the equally small store didn’t: A, destroy the place, or B, scare away any potential customer with a ten mile radius.

She did quite a good job of it too.

On the subject of Allura, she was an immigrant from somewhere in England, and she still had quite a strong accent despite having lived in America for so long. She was definitely not someone to let others take charge, and Lance was almost certain that she could probably carry him like he was nothing, because she had the muscles of a _god_.

In all honesty, when she had first introduced herself to him, he was slightly in shock, because this woman, who was the exact image of what Lance pictured a model to be, with her vibrant silver hair and hot pink markings tattooed under her eyes that contrasted perfectly with her dark skin, was not only working at a no name tattoo shop nearer the outskirts of town, but was also going to be his boss for the foreseeable future.

Lance, who had never been good at knowing when to keep his mouth shut, instantly tried to use some of his less than perfect flirting moves on her. The results hadn’t been that pretty, and Lance was still surprised to this day that he had not lost his already shaky position as an apprentice right there and then.

Luckily for him, Allura had been in a decent mood that day, and he’d managed to hold onto his apprenticeship, and after almost five years, Allura had forgiven him for his original flirting attempts, nowadays she would simply roll her eyes when Lance dropped the flirt, as she had long since learned that it was just how Lance acted towards those he was close to, and she took his cheesy pickup lines and compliments with a grain of salt.

“Forget to sleep again?” Lance questioned, aware of Allura’s awful sleeping habits.

“I got really caught up in my commissions, one second I looked up at the sunset then the next the sun was coming up, I had two finished commissions sat next to me and my alarm buzzing from my phone saying it was time to go, I just threw on the nearest clothes and ran.”

“Did you even get anything to eat?” Lance raised an eyebrow, slightly worried for the woman in front of him, masses of hair pulled into a messy bun and head hung over a plastic cup, which Lance assumed contained coffee.

“No,” she mumbled, and Lance sighed.

“God damnit Allura,” he instantly set to work, going for the farthest left cabinet at the back of the small break room, reaching his hand into the part concealed by the fact the cabinet was at a corner, and pulled out a decently full box of cheerios.

Allura stared in confusion, “since when did we have cheerios…” she trailed off, and Lance continued with the short work of grabbing their half empty carton of milk and one of the few clean bowls they had, continuing to splash in some milk and then pouring in a bit more cereal than necessary.

Grabbing one of their many plastic spoons, he dropped it into the bowl, and then pushed it rather forcefully in front of Allura, “don’t ask, eat.”

Allura spared him one more confused glanced, before thanking him and proceeding to attack the bowl in front of her. It honestly wasn’t a very uncommon sight, as Allura forgot to eat almost as often as she forgot to sleep, and he, Shiro, and Coran made sure to keep enough breakfast supplies hidden in the back room in case Allura, or on occasion Lance or Shiro, was in need.

Lance had long since given up on giving Allura any sort of criticism when it came to her sleep, he had tried a few times in the past, but he had long given up ever since the time Allura had gone a whole week with a grand total of four hours of sleep. The woman was unstoppable, and incredibly stubborn when she wanted to be, and she was not changing anytime soon.

Lance instead decided to spend his time flicking through the break room’s small block of a computer, lazily scrolling through today’s appointments, checking if anything big was booked for either Allura or Shiro. He was quite a fan of large pieces, and often enjoyed peeking over his co-worker’s shoulders whenever one was in progress.

He groaned slightly when he realised most of today was completely unbooked, meaning that they could get anything requested from a few cursive words to an entire landscape in exact detail, even if the person describing it couldn’t say anything more than that there were trees and that the sky was clear. He really hated uncertainty in his job, because although most of their customers were decent people, they did get the occasional unsavoury character or someone who claimed they didn’t know what they wanted exactly, but know once they saw it.

Those kind of people really did piss him off, even on good days.

For the next half an hour, the only sounds in the compact break room was Allura making her way through her cheerios and coffee, and the small clicks that came from the old computer’s mouse.

That was until Lance realised that they needed to open shop in only a couple of minutes, and he realised that the store’s third six days a week worker, Shiro, wasn’t there.

“Hey, ‘llura?”

Allura made a small sound of response through her mouthful of cereal.

“Do you know where Shiro is? I just noticed he isn’t here, and that’s weird because he usually gets here an hour before me.”

“Lance, you usually get here after we’ve opened,” Allura deadpanned him back.

“That’s besides the point,” he waved his hand, dismissing the completely accurate point Allura had just made, “he’s not here now, and that’s about as uncommon as me being here early.”

“You’re not wrong there, but he sent me a message around eight, apparently his younger brother has transferred university for whatever reason, so he’s moving in with him and Matt, so he’s spending the day catching up and moving him in.”

“Wait, he’s letting him move into their apartment?” Lance raised an eyebrow, a bit of disbelief in his voice as he looked up from the computer screen that he’d been staring at idly beforehand.

“Yeah? What’s up with that?”

“Well for one, there’s no way I’d let any of my siblings move in with me, no exceptions. And secondly, won’t he intrude on his and Matt’s completely-obvious-but-they-won’t-admit-it relationship?”

Allura shrugged, “Shiro and his brother haven’t seen each other in forever if I’m right, apparently his parents banned his brother from talking to him that often after Shiro dropped out of uni.”

“Ah man, that’s gotta suck. I’d hate not being able to talk to my siblings just because of some petty reason like that.”

“Weren’t you just saying you wouldn’t let them move in with you no matter what?” Allura raised an eyebrow, a small smile tugging at her lips as she finished off her coffee.

“Allura, there is a big difference between talking with siblings and living with them.”

“Well,” Allura started, as she pushed herself up from the chair, “I wouldn’t know.” She smirked slightly at Lance’s annoyed glare, and started to clean up her makeshift breakfast.

“Oh I’m sorry misses single child, I forget that you have never experience the pain of having three small children jumping on your chest at 4am on Christmas because they want to open their presents.”

Allura let out an evil sounding chuckle, and Lance raised his fist, shaking it jokingly at Allura. He adored his family, but he really wanted to wake up at a normal time on Christmas at least once in his life.

Maybe one day.

“C’mon you nerd,” Allura jokingly hit the side of his head, a smile still prominent on her face, “let’s go tattoo some humans.” Lance’s smile mirrored Allura’s, small but real.

It was times like this, with even the smallest of interactions, that Lance could say that he completely and truly loved his job and the people that he worked with.

He wouldn’t trade this for the world.


	2. First impressions are important

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the updates will be erratic and without warning. Don't say I didn't warn you. I'm also really pissed that I didn't bump it up to 10,000 words with this chapter but fuck it am I right well who cares because even if I'm wrong you can't do anything take that Steven.

“Shiro, no.” Keith deadpanned, staring directly at his brother, despite the fact that he had his back to him.

“Oh come on Keith, it’ll be fine, I promise,” Shiro replied instantly, not even turning to look at Keith as he continued up the stairs, large box in hand with a hastily scribbled ‘clothes’ scratched onto the side in black ink.

“Shiro, I don’t want to meet your work friends, we’ll probably only talk once and then never see or speak to each other again,” Keith readjusted the much smaller box in his arms, an equally messy rendition of ‘random’ in that same dark ink.

“For one, they’re not all work friends, Pidge and Hunk are also studying aerospace engineering if I’m right, and I’m sure you can bond over that, anyways,” Shiro cut off for a few seconds, hoisting up the slowly slipping box in his hands, “you’ll have to get along with at least one of them, they all come over quite a bit so you’ll have to get used to it.”

“But Shiroooo,” Keith moaned, but Shiro cut him off.

“Ah buh buh, I’m not letting you waste around in our flat all day this year because you have no one to talk to, having friends is a condition of living here.”

“Hey, you never mentioned that when you offered me your spare room!”

“Well, I mentioned it now, didn’t it?” Although Keith couldn’t see it, he could just _feel_ the condescending look on Shiro’s face right now, and he huffed in annoyance.

They mostly remained silent, except for when Shiro noticed something note worthy as they made their way up multiple flights of seemingly endless stairs. It reminded Keith why he had chosen a ground floor dorm when he first started university, but hey, if living here meant A, being able to see his brother, and B, living in a spare room for an outrageously small amount of rent, Keith could stand an extra ten minutes walking up and down stairs every day.

When Shiro finally stepped out into one of the floors hallways, Keith’s arm were getting sore, and he found himself regretting trying to carry one of the heaviest boxes he could find. It wasn’t that he was trying to show off or anything, he just wanted to get the worst out of the way without pushing it all onto Shiro.

Speaking of Shiro, he’d noticed Keith hesitating a bit at the top of the stairs, “you ok Keith? You can take a second to stretch y’know? This isn’t a race or anything.” At this comment however, Keith, who was as stubborn as a brick wall, simply started powering forward, only adjusting his grip on the box for a split second before striding at a much faster pace than he probably should be in an unknown building.

Shiro sighed a bit, a small but fond smile on his face. He knew Keith to well, and knew if he didn’t interfere Keith would be spending the rest of the day trying to find his and Matt’s apartment on his own despite the fact that he had never seen it before.

“Keith, your going to wrong way, the apartment is on the left,” Keith stopped mid power walk, a light blush falling on his pale cheeks before he abruptly turned around, continuing as if he never stopped.

“I knew that,” Keith mumbled, a bad habit he had had since childhood, and Shiro couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle at his brother’s stubbornness. Shiro had always sworn that at times even a metaphorical bull charging at him headfirst couldn’t move the boy when he thought he was right.

Shiro did a half run half jog to catch up to the speeding boy, and by the time the taller man had caught up to him, they reached the door that led into Shiro’s shared apartment, left slightly ajar for easy access. Shiro indicated it to Keith with a hand gesture, which was honestly quite hard to see when the man was carrying a box the size of his torso.

Using his shoulder, Shiro pushed the door open enough to fit through, then pushed it open completely with his foot, trying to get as much room as he could so he could squeeze the large box he was carrying through the slender door frame. Keith followed through, having to resort to walking in sideways due to the rectangle shape of the box he was carrying. If he remember correctly the box contained curtains, but he wasn’t sure.

Keith took a few seconds to take in his current and newest living space. He had seen in before of course, but only in glimpses, as in the occasional picture Shiro would send from random places in his home.

Now he could see it in person, he could tell it was quite a nice place. The grey styled kitchen linked in with the equally grey living room, the kitchen half of the room consisting of a counter with four low stools, while the living room consisted of a three seatt sofa with several bean bags scattered around it. Mounted on a wall was a rather large and slightly curved tv, which looked quite out of place compared to the otherwise simplistic look the rest of the apartment had.

He also noticed a small potted cactus sitting in the center of the kitchen’s counter, a small and red plastic sombrero balanced on the top of it. Needless to say, he was rather confused, luckily for him, Shiro turned around at that very moment, looking to find why Keith had stopped, and followed his confused look to the strange house plant.

“Ah,” Shiro sighed, “I see you’ve spotted Gilbert.” Keith gave him a questioning glance, which was mixed with a heavy helping of confusion. “It’s a long story, trust me.”

Keith shook his head slightly, and Shiro continued walking through the apartment while Keith trailed after, taking in the soft colours and occasional painting or photo on the walls. It wasn’t long before Shiro was shouldering his way through yet another soft brown door, into what Keith assumed to be his room.

It was simply and plain, the walls were a darker grey then what he had seen in the rest of the house, the floor was still the same dark coloured wood, and the roof was still a soft shade of white.

There was a light coloured desk that curved around the corner, the chair having yet to be brought in, a tall bookshelf built into the wall, and the closet sitting in the top left corner with a straw basket sitting on the top.

The bed itself was rather plain, being a single bed with a navy headboard. The only thing off about it was the honey haired boy wrapped in the sheets, a look of frustration obvious on his face. Keith was rather alarmed at the unfamiliar face, while pure disappointment fell upon Shiro’s face as he stared directly at the tangled-up boy.

“Really Matt? _Again?_ ” Shiro dumped his box onto the ground, making his way over to the stuck man while Keith realised a few things.

One, this had to be Shiro’s roommate, Matt, who he had only talked to through a very strange group chat Shiro had forced him into a few months ago, and if that chat was anything to go off of, the man was a living, breathing and walking personification of a meme.

Two, _again?_ If he had a usual habit of getting trapped in bed sheets, Keith wasn’t sure if he would fair that well as a roommate.

“Well I’m sorry golden boy, not all of us are masters of these god forsaken sheets,” another thing, Keith recalled, was that he had a bad habit of swearing every second sentence, often with a strange phrase or reference. Keith was already wary of him.

“Matt, these ones don’t even curl, and how on earth did you tie half of it around your foot?” Although the disappointment was gone, his expression was replaced with one of confusion, wondering how he had managed to tie a double knot around his left foot on accident.

“Magic,” he blew up his hands in front of him, a slight mischievous smirk on his face.

“I swear that you’re the reason my hair’s turning white.”

“Shiro, Allura dared you to do that about a year ago and it’s stuck, do not lie to me man,” by now Shiro had managed to remove his friend’s foot from the knot, and was now working on rolling him out from the twisted sheet.

Shiro remained silent at this comment, and focused entirely on unwrapping the man before him, spending another good minute in defiant silence as he Matt out of the strange predicament they had found him in.

Matt was left lying on his stomach on the bed, and it was then he realised the awkward figure of Keith, not wanting to interrupt the two’s conversation, yet also having several questions about whether or not agreeing to live here was a good choice.

Of course, Matt decided to break the ice with the friendliest and best question he could think of, “Shiro, why does your brother look like a 2004 band reject? It’s like Pidge’s emo stage but worse.”

Keith had to resist the urge to either turn around and leave, or start off on a rant about how his appearance was his own choice, but luckily Shiro interrupted before he could do either.

“Matt, don’t pretend like you didn’t have a scene phase, I have physical and digital evidence,” oh Keith already knew he wanted to see that. Matt was quick with a retort however, instantly hitting back with.

“Ah yes, thanks for bringing that up Shiro, reminds me of the time I found your search history consisted entirely of wikihows on how to be a hipster dude.”

Keith almost did a double take at this, and Matt’s already forming grin suddenly got much larger, “oh Keith, did Shiro here never tell you of his wonderful three years as a fully fledged hipster?” In normal circumstances, Keith would’ve been scared of Shiro’s expression, but right now, Keith was preoccupied with at laughing at the mental image of Shiro, a 6ft dude that was practically a walking piece of muscle, covered in tattoos and piercings, with rather badass prosthetic arm, walking around in floral and complaining about the mainstream.

“Oh my god,” Keith murmured, turning to his brother with wide eyes, “is _that_ why you have so much floral in your wardrobe?” Shiro didn’t share much about his life before Keith was adopted, and he’d never told Keith about some of his most unique traits, such as how he’d gained his unusually large collection of floral and tie die in his wardrobe, which he had always refused to explain.

A light blush appeared on Shiro’s face, and he murmured something about grabbing another box before speed walking out of the room, not wanting to face the beginning of Keith’s laughter.

 By the time Keith had calmed down from learning this new information, Matt having successfully managed to put a case on a pillow while Keith had finished putting on his bed sheets, Shiro still had yet to return. Keith soon became uncomfortable in the awkward silence he and Matt had while they were working, so he mumbled something about going to ask Shiro something and quickly made his way out of the flat.

He walked purposefully slow down the hallway, noting that apart from the occasional eccentric door knob or some sort of poster, the hallway was completely plain, the only interesting thing was the simple white patterns on the bottom of the navy walls.

He also took his time down the equally boring stairs, half hoping that Shiro would just suddenly pop up, he was already surprised that he hadn’t run into someone yet, and he really didn’t want the first person to show up without his brother to hide behind.

Now that he rethought that, he really had to wonder how he’d survived when he’d moved into the dorms of his last university…

Moving on.

His mind trailed away as he carelessly wandered down the stairs, and before he knew it he was standing on the grey carpeted lobby, a room that would be completely bare if it weren’t for the pale white rug in the middle and the small huddle of low chairs that were shoved next to a ceiling high bookshelf that was only half full.

The black framed glass doors were pushed completely open, letting in an overpowering bright light from outside, damn, Keith would have to get used to that much sun. That was if he even went outside, of course.

As he began to move to get out of the light, he noticed the ray was being interrupted, giving him a second of relief that he realised the thing blocking it was a person.

A running person.

A running person that was running towards him.

_Oh no._

Unfortunately, by the time Keith realised the speed this person was going at, he lost his only chance to make a break for it, and could only watch as this unknown figure sprinted directly towards him, completely oblivious of Keith due to the large box he was carrying in his arms.

He crashed into him at top speed, the momentum throwing Keith off of his feet, luckily he managed to turn mid fall and shoot his arm out onto the ground, badly scraping his knee through his already ripped knees and grazing his palm on the carpet as he stopped himself from faceplanting into the ground.

The other guy however seemed to not have been that lucky, and his cry of pain was much louder than Keith’s small hiss. He scrunched up his eyes for a few seconds to get his bearings, then opened them again to take a look at the unknown person he had crashed into.

The assumedly male figure was curling up on himself slightly, hand cupping his cheek in pain, the box he had been carrying had burst open, leaving the small items inside it scattered across the floor, but that was none of Keith’s concern.

What Keith wanted to know was why this idiot had been running at full speed through a building when he couldn’t even see in front of him. With anger fuelled by his naturally bad temper and what Keith assumed would become a bruise on his hip, he began berating into the pained man in front of him.

“What the hell man!” He hauled himself up from the floor, “who the hell runs with a box when they can’t even see in front of them! And who runs while holding a box anyways! That’s called being a god damned idiot right there, did you just think everyone would make way or some shit! Because news flash buddy, they damn well don’t! I’ve probably got a bruise on my hip now because you didn’t have the common decency to look in front of you!”

Already worked up, he decided to kick the already slightly crushed box the man was carrying, content scattering even more, but Keith didn’t even get a glance at it before the previously silent man spoke up, “hey, it’s not my fault that your too damn lazy to move out of the god damned way! And newsflash right back at you, you aren’t the only one who’s in pain right now!”

The man pushed himself up with his hand, and used the other to point at his face, “hey, don’t kick that, that’s not even mine! And it’s not like your fucking bleeding! See here? I’m bleeding because you didn’t think to move out of the way!”

Keith couldn’t deny this, as the red stood out quite brightly on the man’s honey brown face, slowly trickling down, staining both his jaw and the hand he’d been covering it with. Without man, the man practically jumped up, and before Keith knew it the man was almost face to face with him, a bloodied finger on his chest as the man began to rant, not even stopping to breathe.

Unconsciously, Keith started blocking out the man’s seemingly endless rant, more focused on how blue the guy’s eyes were. It probably wasn’t the best thing to be thinking of when the man was yelling at him for ‘not have enough brain power to move their own feet’. Because hot damn, his eyes were _really_ blue. The sort of blue that is incredibly over exaggerated in fiction to the point where you think it is humanely impossible.

It honestly contrasted really well with his dark skin, and he couldn’t help but let his eyes trail down a bit, noticing the guy’s sharp chin line, and prominent collar bones, and his hips and oh god Keith stop your gay is showing.

Behind the stranger’s slender neck- Keith stop no focus- Keith could see a figure walk through the door, and it was only after they had dropped the boxes they were holding and started sprinting towards them that Keith realised that it was Shiro.

He didn’t seem to realise that Keith was there however, and his evidence for that was when he got to them after a few long and fast strides and pulled the two men apart, holding each of them at an arm’s length, hand on chests, the first thing he did was start trying to calm down the other man.

“Lance! Hey, calm down! I’m didn’t see but I’m sure you don’t need to be yelling this loud-“ that was when Shiro’s head turned, “hi, sorry…” he began, until he realised that the person in front of him was Keith, and he trailed off, left slightly speechless. He expected a couple weeks before Keith sparked anything off, not a few hours. Keith was slightly confused, seeing as Shiro seemed to know the name of a stranger that he already disliked, but he didn’t put much thought into it because the boy started up again.

“Shirooo! Let go! Your pulling on my shirt and I’m busy because this random asshole tripped me over-“

“Hey!” Keith interrupted, pushing against Shiro’s firm grip on his shirt, “last time I checked running headfirst into someone isn’t tripping you over, I didn’t even do anything wrong here!

“Oh yeah! Well last time I checked it was, mullet!” The boy raised his arms above him as if to show he had made a point, but Keith’s face scrunched up a bit here, of all things, was his haircut really the worst insult the dude could think of?

Of course, that didn’t mean the insult didn’t work, and by now Keith was near fuming. First, this guy crashes into him, leaving his hip aching, then he has the nerve to blame him for it? No, Keith wasn’t having it.

“Well how about I change your mind for you then you scrawny little-“ The situation was clearly escalating, so Shiro took the initiative and loosened his grip on Lance, pushing the offended boy backwards, using his now free prosthetic to grab onto Keith’s raised fist.

“Hey hey hey, both of you! Calm down! Keith, count to ten, Lance, put your arms down and get that smug look off your face. Your adults, stop fighting like kids!”

A confused glance came onto the stranger’s face, but Keith was still to mad to focus on that, so instead he tried to focus on his breathing as Shiro was telling him to, that was until the stranger, whose name was seemingly Lance according to Shiro, spoke up once again, and Keith’s focus on his breathing was broken.

“Wait wait wait, Keith? As in like, your brother Keith? As in your brother that is the entire reason we came here to meet?” Lance’s words were at rapid fire, all directed at Shiro, who was trying to figure out how to resolve this all as easily as possible.

Lance’s anger was overwhelmed by his curiosity, and he began hitting Shiro with a swarm of questions, and Shiro tried his best to answer while also stopping Keith from murdering the lanky man in front of him. Even if these questions weren’t directed at him, the man’s voice was grating on his already fragile nerves, and Keith snapped at him.

“Who ever said I wanted to meet you? Or did you just assume that you’d waltz in here, say a couple words and woo me into being your friend? Because that isn’t happening any time soon bud, actually it’s probably not happening ever, so you can forget that full stop.”

“Jesus Shiro,” Lance’s anger was suddenly back, a pissed look on his face, “forget to tell me your brother’s an asshole? Thought you would’ve remembered.”

Shiro, meanwhile, was trying to salvage anything he could from this, “Lance, don’t start on that, look, you both just had a bad start, how about we just forget that this all happened and introduce you two properly-“

“Yeah right,” Keith scoffed, now grabbing at Shiro’s loosened grip on his shirt and yanking it off, “why would I ever want to be friends with an asshole like him?”

“Right back at you buddy,” Lance glared.

“Oh, fuck off with your buddy thing you ass, as if I’d even want to be near you after you try to blame me for your own damn stupidity.”

Lance scoffed, but couldn’t think of a response, so he turned his eyes to Shiro, completely blanking the death glare Keith was giving him, “see you at work tomorrow Shiro, have fun with your ass of a brother. Make sure he doesn’t kill anyone.”

With that, Lance turned on his heel, striding out without hesitation, only stopping to give looks to a pair who were standing by the door that Keith had yet to notice. One was, put simply, huge, and the other was miniscule compared to him, and even from a distance Keith could tell that they bared an incredible likeness to Matt.

He didn’t see them for that long, only for the few seconds it took before they were chasing after the fast retreat Lance was making.

“God dammit Keith,” Shiro breathed, giving Keith his signature disappointed dad™ look, “why’d you have to go and piss Lance of all people off?”

“Hey,” Keith gave Shiro a light shove, but he couldn’t help the slight bit of guilt that came over him, he knew he blew up there, but then again, Keith wasn’t going to let a guy push him around just because he knew his brother. “I didn’t mean to,” he grumbled, instinctively straightening up and crossing his arms over his chest, “he wasn’t looking where he was going and crashed into me, what was I supposed to do?”

Shiro sighed, and shook his head, “just, you need to keep your cool Keith. You’re lucky to have even gotten accepted into a school this late in the academic year, especially with-“

“Yeah Shiro, I know, please don’t start, your starting to sound too much like dad. I’ll just go unpack something in my room, ok?” Shiro nodded, but the disappointed look on his face remained, only prompting Keith to walk up the stairs faster to escape Shiro’s stare.

By the time he had found his way into the apartment and room, Matt had disappeared somewhere, so Keith gave himself the luxury of slamming his new room’s door behind him. Childish, he knew, but Christ, it did wonders for making him feel better.

His first idea was to lie down, and before he knew it he was lying face down on top of the covers, head buried in one of the pillows. His mind couldn’t help but replay the events of only a couple of minutes ago, and his mind couldn’t help but keep flicking back to Lance. With his stupid nice skin and weirdly bright blue eyes and nice clothes and the simple but nice eyebrow and ear studs and oh god wait a moment.

‘Oh for the love of god’ Keith thought to himself ‘why are the hot ones always assholes. He’s also probably straight as well and he already didn’t like Keith and Jesus Christ brain stop.’

Keith groaned in frustration into his pillow, he was too gay for this shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> same keith same


	3. Confrontation is fun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes i haven't updated this in months but:  
> 1\. I'm a lazy fuck  
> 2\. I was in France for two weeks  
> 3\. Season 3 came out and honestly that was a shitfest  
> 4: did i mentioned that im a lazy fuck
> 
> also what the fuck is getting a beta reading ahahahah who needs c o r r e c t i o n s i suffer we suffer

The next day, while Lance was driving to work, a fully written and proof checked speech scribbled out over his hand and wrist for his co-worker Shiro for whatever the fuck had happened yesterday, and why he had refused to answer him in their work group chat. About five minutes into his drive however, he was far more concerned by how fucking cold it was.

He swore on his life that he would forever despise December to March and their 40 Fahrenheit bullshit, he was not built for this weather.

So as he rapidly shuffled through the street, hugging his rather thick jumper close to him as he approached the somehow forever pristine white walls of his workplace, he found himself opening the store's back door with just a bit too much vigor, which was proved by him seeing Allura visibly jump as the door slammed open.

"No talky, need warmth now, stat," Lance mumbled, already caught up with relief as the hot air of the store hit him.

"Alright, alright, just close the door behind you man, your gonna let the heat out," she replied as she stood up, pulling out her seat behind her and making her way towards the rooms less than adequate coffee machine, which had a wonderful habit of completely destroying whatever measurements you wanted.

The machine was quite a gamble, yet he didn't dare use the shop's kettle, which was reserved for Allura and Allura only. He had once asked why no one else was allowed to to use it, and in an incredibly nonchalant voice she had replied, "if you dare even touch the handle of that machine, I will rip your spine out and use it as a tea spoon."

Yeah no, he was not touching that kettle anytime soon.

Lance made sure to close the door firmly behind him, then made a break for the chair that Allura had abandoned, allowing himself to sink back into the hard frame, "latte?" Allura questioned, shooting a look to Lance from over her shoulder.

"Extra milk?" Lance raised an eyebrow, testing Allura's knowledge.

"Obviously."

"Allura, you know me so well," Lance smiled slightly, but just before he had reached the perfect half sitting half laying position on the chair, he shot up, "wait, 'llura, we still have that sick ass caramel sauce Hunk brought over a couple weeks ago?"

"The one you tried to chug after only having trying a drop?”

"That's the one."

"Well, I think some of it survived that tragic event," Allura trailed off as she focused on the grumbling machine before her, and behind her Lance reluctantly left his newly beloved chair and started to rummage through the room's drawers and cupboards, until he eventually pulled out his target.

He lifted it up in victory, but he had to pull it back quickly when Allura swiped for it.

"Hey, give me that, otherwise your gonna end up trying to shove that entire thing into your face again.

"Allura, can you really blame me if I did, I mean, this stuff is the shiiiiiiiiiiit," at that comment, Allura gave him a small clip over the head, but Lance could see the humor on her face.

"What'd I say about swearing at work?"

"Only swear if the customer swears first," Lance droned back, imitating the voice of a displeased four year old.

"Good Lance, now shut up and take your damn coffee," Allura shoved the paper cup into Lance's chest, and he set down the sauce's container before taking the cup gratefully, he then let out a string of curses because hot damn that cup was on fire and his hands were burning.

"Jesus Allura, how the hell do you carry these things without your hands erupting into flames?" He hurriedly shoved the cup onto the dark surface of the counter, and after waving his hands around for a bit, picked up the caramel sauce's container.

After wrestling with the lid, he rather inelegantly attempted to drizzle the sauce onto his coffee, and half of it ended up on the counter, which resulted in Allura having to physically restrain him from licking it off.

"Lance, no!" There has been ink and hands on that counter, you've put your bare leg on it for god's sake-"

"It's been cleaned it's fiNE!"

"laNCE NO!"

Lance eventually had to give in on his quest to save his lost caramel that lay so dauntingly in front of him, due to Allura's strength being far superiors to his, "Allura please your grip is too strong, I do not wish to die on this day."

"Stop exaggerating, weakling."

"Offensive, I'll have you know I went to a gym about a month ago, I'm practically the hulk," Lance crossed his arms after being released, putting on a stupidly confident face as he made his lack of physical prowess clear.

"Yeah right, you keep believing that buddy," Allura waved him off, "just finish off your milk and sugar water and help me open up, Shiro hasn't shown yet again."

Lance groaned, god damnit Shiro, now he'd have to help set up again, "did you try texting him?" Lance called out to Allura, before taking a burning sip of his drink.

"Of course I did!" She shouted back.

"You try the groupchat as well?" Lance questioned her as he continued taking scalding sips, "you know he always forgets to turn his text notifications on."

"Didn't cross my mind, you try," she called back yet again, seemingly having moved even further away from the store's small break room.

Lance carefully balanced his drink in one hand, while easing his phone out of his pocket, which was much harder than you'd think, due to the fact there was about a mile of clutter blocking his way.

Eventually he did manage to pull the device out, and quickly tapped his fingers across the service, unlocking his phone and eventually pulling up their shop's groupchat, which Shiro had made him join when he first started working here for 'easier communications' or something like that.

_[You] hey shito were u at??_

Beautifully constructed, he knew.

He mindlessly tapped through a couple of his apps for a few minutes, trying to procrastinate helping Allura to clean up for as long as possible.

Then his phone pinged, and he eagerly tapped onto the notification.

_[anactualdaddy™] About to start driving, sorry I’m late, had complications._

_[You] come quikc or llurs gonna make meh cleaaan_

_[You] pls dad i dint want taht in my life_

_[anactualdaddy™]_ _Ill be there in a minute, now stop texting I have to drive_

_[You] u live 5 mins walk from ehre tf you drivin for???_

_[anactualdaddy™]_ _Complications_

_[You] bitch u aint 007 wtf you talkin bout complications for_

_[anactualdaddy™] oh no I can’t hear you over the engine_

_[anactualdaddy™] what a tragedy_

_[You] do not lie to me shiro_

_[You] you think even touching ur phone in   a car is ille gal_

Shiro stopped responding after that, and Lance huffed, before shoving his phone into his pocket and pushing his way through the break room’s door, into the store’s studio.

It was decently sized, with the front wall pushed in a bit at the doorway, and the walls a soft white with blue accents. The floor was a simple light wood, which Lance knew was quite high quality, as it had survived years of foot fall and spillages.

The desk stood to the left of the entrance, a simple surface with an equally simple computer on it’s surface, there was also a register that allowed cash and card paying, and Lance had found from his years of prowling around the shop that most people preferred card.

Aside from there, there were four chairs scattered around the room, different work places for the three main artists of the shops, with examples of their work pinned, taped and even glued onto the walls around them. It was easy to tell that each of the artists had very different styles in both work and their styles.

Shiro’s designated area matched his art, well organised and precise, as Shiro specialised in anything line art or geometrical. His wall had a few lines of high quality images of anything from a couple of different coloured lines to entire arms filled with complex shapes and patterns, he even had the occasional biomechanical.

As for Allura, here’s was a mess of different styles, somehow organised to make a very unique work space, she stocked anything to a machine with one needle to one that’s needles that made up a large radius than Lance’s eye. He would not lie, that particular machine scared him a lot during his first year here, and he had to admit that he was still rather wary of it.

When it came to Lance, everything was a fucking _explosion_. Not to say it was messy, but it was the type where although stuff is everywhere, Lance still knew where everything was, and if it was even organised slightly Lance would probably spend a month searching for even the simplest of tools. Allura had learnt that the hard way, when she first tried to tidy up Lance’s work place. He was fumbling around for his red inks for at least a week after that.

So for Lance, seeing as even touching his spread would cause the loss off 50% of supplies, when it came to setting up in the morning, he was stuck with wiping down the counters and floors.

And off he went, he made his way to the counter and grabbed the sterile wipes that sat in a packet, and started wiping down everything he passed by, carefully placing back anything he had to pick up the clean the surface underneath it.

He continued this for a couple of minutes, mindlessly humming to himself as he worked, and as he was just about ready to move onto the floors, he was stopped by a loud crash and yelling.

“whAT’S UP SLUTS!” A very tired looking Matt yelled as he stood in the doorway, now holding back the glass door he had slammed into the wall only a few seconds ago.

“MATT WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT SLAMMING THE FUCKING DOORS,” his glorious entrance was incredibly short lived, as he was immediately swarmed by Allura, who hadn’t trusted Matt with doors since the day he first walked into the shop, and she was honestly getting tired of him doing it. She had needed to replace the panels over three times this year alone, and it was on February.

Matt had of course payed for them all, but it was a matter of principle, and Allura didn’t think it was good that she was on first name basis with all the employees at the glass store down the road.

Matt shrugged off Allura’s small rant at him, “gotta make a grand entrance for a newby.” Allura made a small questioning sound, but it was soon answered by Shiro stepping through the doors, dragged a rather pissed looking man in by the wrist.

Oh shit, Lance remembered that pissed off look. Lance didn’t even stop to think before he rushed into speech.

“Hey, you’re the dude from yesterday that crashed into me!” Lance pointed with an accusing finger, and he in the corner of his vision Shiro’s expression dropping.

“Huh? What… wait, how did I crash into you! You ran head first into me-“

Before Lance could reply, Shiro cut in, “nope, not doing that,” he turned to the pissed looking boy, who he was still holding onto, “Lance, this is my brother Keith, and you two aren’t allowed to hate each other after only one day,” he pushed the boy in front of him, and he responded by crossing his arms and directly his vision to the floor, “now you two, apologise.”

“Yeah mullet boy, apologise,” Lance taunted, even though he knew in the back of his mind that that was a terrible idea.

“Why should I have too-“ The boy started up, an angry looking coming onto his face as he took a step towards Lance, and Lance copied him.

“Lance,” Shiro spoke up, an annoyed tone in his voice, and Lance, not wanting to get on Shiro’s bad side, settling on giving the pale boy in front of him a glare, which he found was quickly returned, “Keith, go on.”

“I’m sorry,” the boy mumbled, eyes darting away, suddenly focused on the wall to his left.

“Lance, your turn.”

“What! But-“ Lance started up, the smug look he gained from hearing Keith apologise wiped off. He knew he was in the wrong as well, but that didn’t mean he wanted to admit it.

“Lance, apologise,” Shiro pulled the father voice again, and Lance was forced to copy Keith, mumbling out an equally unfeeling sorry before turning away.

“I’m so confused,” Lance heard Allura breath out, but he was now strolling away to the break room.

He returned after a couple minutes, soapy water and mop pulled along behind him, adamantly ignoring the newly started conversation between Shiro, Allura and Matt, explaining the seemingly random forced apology that just happened.

He kept his head down as he wiped down the already rather shiny surface, until a thought came to mind and he slowly inched his way towards the small group, mop still quickly making it’s way across the ground, and when he got close enough, he made a quickly flick off his wrist, and the soapy water contained in the mop swept it’s way over Keith’s shoes, causing the boy to start backwards.

“Oops, sorry mullet boy, didn’t see you there,” his cocky smirk told otherwise, and the other boy gave him a harsh glare, and he looked ready to counteract, before Shiro sent him an equally challenging glare, and the boy hunched over, arms crossed over his chest and eyes set on the ground.

To Lance, this was a victory, and his smirk remained for quite a while.

It left however, when he went back to the main room, and he instantly started up conversation with Allura, starting it with his ever accredited, “hey, princess.” With his iconic eyebrow raise and all.

Allura rolled her eyes, a slightly annoyed smile on her face, but she waved him off, instead taking off to the front of the store, turning their flimsy home made open/closed sign to open.

He was soon greeting the first customer of the day, and he only caught a glance of Matt and Keith leaving the shop.

\---

Aside from that small incident in the morning, Lance’s day went by as it normally would, having a four hour session come in, taking a five minute break to cry in the breakroom over shading, chugging an entire bottle of water because Shiro mentioned hydration and antagonising today’s shittiest tattoo idea, which was a self made design of a fire, which closer resembled a poop emoji than any sort of fire.

That didn’t stop Lance from tattooing it.

Which also didn’t stop Allura from nagging him about it for the next thirty minutes, but the guy who had asked for it had seemed pretty pleased with himself, so Lance shrugged it off.

Due to today’s five hour session, he had to take his lunch break a bit later than usual, resulting in him breaking for lunch at 3:30, rather than his go to time of 2pm.

However, as he started the ten minute walk to the local café both Pidge and Hunk walked part time in, he found himself not caring much, because currently his only concern was getting half an hours break from people complaining and/or yelling about how they were in pain.

He knew tattoos hurt, but _Jesus Christ_ , some people could complain.

It wasn’t long before he finished his short trek, and he couldn’t help but be a bit dramatic as he entered the small store, striding in before collapsing face first on the store’s counter, a frustrated moan starting up as his face smushed against the store’s pristine soft brown counter.

“Lance,” he heard the annoyed tone and strained his eyes upwards, into the stare of a very displeased looking Pidge, “I cleaned that five minutes ago, and you know what Hunk’s like about keeping the place clean, I’ll have to wipe everything down again if he spots you, so get your face off-“

“Laaaaaaance,” whoops, too late for Pidge’s plan, “this is a café, the hygiene has to be perfect, we don’t need to spreading any weird face disease thingies from your cheek.”

“Excuse me, I’ll have you know I take the bestest care of all parts of my body, especially the facial area, the only thing my cheek can do for this counter is make it even better.” Lance made a point of this, standing up straight, his trade mark ‘I know what I just said is complete and utter bullshit but I’m sticking with it’ sitting proudly on his face.

“Yeah right,” Pidge smirked, before heading behind the wall that connected to the store’s counter, presumably to grab some sort of cleaning material.

“Quiet day today, huh?” Lance commented as he stared at the almost untouched display of pastries and savoury snacks laying on heating racks behind the counter.

“Not really, you usually come in right at the end of the lunch rush, so there’s still plenty of people here, this is what we get most of the time at three,” Hunk noted, and Lance nodded absentmindedly as he continued to gaze at the chalk board menu hung onto the front of the store’s counter, which he knew the owner of the place, an old and incredibly energetic man named Coran, would change weekly to either add a new recipe, created by him and then edited by one of the staff, or to add some sort of pun or a joke.

The man was certainly a handful at times, going off on tangents a plenty, but he was kind to both employee and customer, and Lance had learned over time that he was fiercely protective of people he cared for, and Lance respected him for that.

“Speaking of the time,” Hunk mentioned, “what brings you here later than usual, two is usually your go to time for food.”

And with that, they eased into simple conversation, Lance complaining to Hunk over an annoying customer while Hunk added in a couple of unpleasant people he had experienced today, to which Pidge immediately cut in to complain about two times of the people Hunk brought up with much more force.

After Lance picked a simple combination of a latte and a jam tart, and he was soon tucked into one of the store’s corner seats, cradling his small pastry as he and Pidge casually talked over the counter, whereas Hunk busied himself with serving the occasional customer and cleaning just about every surface that was in the store.

It was nice to just sit there, casually talking with his friends, discussing whatever topic came up.

“Oh yeah Lance, quick question,” Pidge suddenly brought up as Lance had just taken another bite of his half finished tart, and he hummed a small noise of acknowledgment.

“What’d gotten you so ruffled up yesterday? You got home at like seven or something and didn’t talk to me or Hunk, you didn’t even come out to eat, which is especially weird for you.”

Lance instinctively knitted his brow at the sentence and the memory it brought back up, “well, Shiro asked me to help him move his brother in, and I was carrying a box to the stairs, and I know I was going pretty fast but any person with common sense would’ve thought to get out the way, but this one guy apparently thought he was above that, and I ended up crashing into him, and he got really pissed because I wouldn’t say sorry for it.”

“Lance, if you were going fast, isn’t it technically your fault-“ Pidge didn’t get to finish this sentence however, as Lance continued on.

“And so I start arguing back to this guy, and then Shiro comes in and he goes to make me stop, then he sees the other guy and guess what? He knows this angry dude’s name! And I didn’t think much of it y’know, I was just annoyed because this guy was blaming me so I got home mad, but when I get to work today, guess what! Shiro walks in with this very same dude in tow, and I realise it’s this dude and then Shiro says that it’s his brother! And not only that, that I had to apologise.”

“And?” Pidge questioned, “no big deal really, all you had to do was apologise.”

“But Pidge your missing the point! You didn’t see this guy, he’s Shiro’s brother and all but if you put them next to each other you’d think they were entirely different people.”

“Aren’t they both adopted-“

“No no not like faces and stuff, I mean this guy was nothing like Shiro,” Lance started counting on his fingers, “first off, he was an asshat, which is completely un-Shiro like,”

“Maybe he was an asshat because you walked into him,” Pidge muttered under her breath, but Lance continued on as if she hadn’t said anything.

“Two, this guy was a straight up punk emo grunge kid, like, he was wearing a cropped leather jacket, and he had a _mullet_ Pidge, a fucking _mullet_.”

Pidge just rolled her eyes, not seeming to understand that this man, who was probably somewhere in his early twenties, for whatever ungodly reason decided to style his hair in a way that was popular a total of thirty years ago, that has only looked good on a total of three people in the history of mankind.

“Well, I guess me and Hunk’ll have to get used to that mullet, because apparently there’s a new kid joining some of our lectures, and Matt also mentioned to me he’s on mine and Hunk’s course.”

“Well if you see him then, give him a good ol’ middle finger from yours truly,” Lance smirked at his own comic, and Pidge once again rolled her eyes, while Hunk casually reprimanded him on his manners as he carried a few abandoned cups back to the sink.

“I’d rather not, Matt invited me for a movie’s night on Friday and the guy will probably be there, I’d rather not already be on bad terms with the guy, don’t want him poisoning the popcorn or something.”

“Traitor,” Lance pointed his finger directly at Pidge.

“Can’t be a traitor to someone I was never loyal to,” Pidge smirked, and Lance put his hand to his chest, genuinely offended, to the point of which when Hunk saw his face he burst out laughing.

“I came here to have a good time and I’m honestly feeling so attacked right now.”

“Stop quoting dead memes and finish your drink man, it’s almost twenty past and you’ve got a ten minute walk back to the store,” oh shit, Lance thought to himself, had it already been forty minutes?

It was weird how quickly time would fly on his breaks, but he obeyed Pidge’s commands, having already finished his tart, he eventually finished off his cooled down drink, and was soon handing the cup to Hunk over the counter and waving his friends goodbye.

He smiled slightly as the heat of the sun hit him, and that small smile remained as he continued to walk down the street, gradually making his way back to his workplace, which would probably be already closing at this point, because the closing time was at five, and the employees typically stayed for about half an hour afterwards to clean up and discuss what had happened that day.

In all honesty, his favourite thing was to discuss all the stereotypical or objectively bad tattoos people would ask for throughout the day, and he could not _wait_ to start talking about the home drawn fire that looked like the poop emoji again.


End file.
